eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 25, 2014, 22:14:And yeah it imo needs repeating but the devs at Egosoft literally cannibalized x3 content from the mod community and sold that as "expansions". The actual behind the scenes engine improvements you can count with your fingers on one hand. Rebirth is just what happens when they have nothing to cannibalize from. Same for X3, by the way.

Yeah. All the bonus pack content and trading scripts etc that the community made really makes X3 what it is.

But.. well yeah. We got Rebirth. It is imo the end of egosoft. They will pander this game until it's dead because they don't want to innovate anymore. And Rebirth made them rich. That's the real sad part about the entire thing...

I have to hand it to them for that marketing campaign. I really do. All those preview videos with all those promises. "GTA in space!"

I had my finger on the pre-order button like the rest of the hypnotized masses but something made me hold off.

So many problems that the old games had not rectified and so many new problems that obviously no one thought of. On top of that the new DLC is nothing but a new zone and some new ships.

I guess we now know what they are capable of. Making impressive space visuals.

Even their official behind the scenes threads talk about nothing apart from the graphics side of the game. No discussion on any other aspects, including fleet commands.

eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 25, 2014, 03:28:Well.. you know how people are But as there is no sign of Egosoft seeing the error of their ways I doubt it even becomes relevant. If they don't even HINT at developing X4 you know they really gave up. They have no clue what made x3 good. (Which really, was a game that was easily moddable and thus had way more life than it deserved by itself) Take the community mods (Which means X3 AP and X3 TC) out and you are left with a barren carcass of a game even after years of patching.

I think at some point Egosoft turned from a sandbox developer to a dev that thought they had what it takes to make a real game.

I just don't get what they were thinking or how they even perceive their games.

I've seen statements from Bernd that they didn't expect people to play their games as long as they did. That people playing X-BTF after the plot was over for so many hours was shocking. But then they make no actual endgame content in any of their successive titles. Including XR.

The community takes time to mod in piloting other ships which they then include in all their games right up to Albion Prelude. And then they somehow have this brainfart that releasing a game with a single (exceedingly uninteresting and ugly) ship is the way to go.

They claim they built the new engine to solve their past AI and pathing issues but actual collision damage is turned off and ships still get stuck in things and enter loops.

I really want to see what their next game announcement will be like. Out of morbid curiosity.

eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 24, 2014, 17:36:Can you blame Paradox for a dev coding an engine that can't handle the game they are making?

If they don't give the developer adequate time to finish the game and they keep interfering in the dev process, yes I can.

And a dev that implements ideas that literally nobody wants in an turn based 4x (turns taking in excess of 5 minutes)?

You actually think that long turn times was somehow an idea by a developer? Or anyone? What are you smoking?

I mean I get your point, but Paradox was the gatekeeper that failed, while Kerberos was the dev that failed.

I look at the history of the developer and see that this is their ONLY game that came out like that. These are the guys who made Homeworld Cataclysm and Homeworld 2. They don't have a history of releasing games in that state.

What decent publisher stops a developer from patching a game at no cost to itself? Paradox says one thing and then does something else entirely. A lot of smaller publishers operate just as bad or worse than the Evil Overlords (EA, Activision) that we all love to hate.

Now take a look at Egosoft's history.

And yeah.. the problem is Egosoft made a shit-ton of money from Rebirth from all the fans that (stupidly) bought into it. From what I hear it was enough to keep Egosoft afloat for 10+ years. And that a studio slacks off and basically just recycles in such state is sadly reality ;(

I keep hoping that people stop rewarding that kind of behaviour when it repeats itself so often, but I have my doubts.

InBlack wrote on Dec 22, 2014, 07:04:They can stick their first ten missions of the 'episodic' Squadron42 where the Sun dont fucking shine. The last time I fell for that bullshit I still thought Halflife 3 was just around the corner. Fuck that. Im with MoreLuckThanSkill here. If and when he releases the FULL single player game (which is basically what everyone wanted before the MMO fanbois became the dominant voice in the Starcitizen kickstarer) I might jump on board. Call me a hater if you like. I do hate dishonest bastards, although I usually reserve that feeling for people I actually know in real life. In this case Im more annoyed with the army of fanbois who believe they are dictating the development of a game, and paying for the privilege of doing so.

So hold on. Squadron 42 is now episodic?? I thought it was a full campaign on release. Yeah...this keeps getting better.

It's like no one can just make the game they promised. X Rebirth a total FUBAR on launch that still hasn't recovered. ED cancels the offline mode. Now SC and all its 70 million promises that keep changing.

Someone needs to donate a couple million to the guy that makes Evochron and have him make a decent space sim for current gen PC systems. I at least trust him to deliver what he said.

Well the tricky thing about content in a fully procedurally generated universe is that it doesn't really come from a guy simply adding missions etc.

In LT's case, the game world is supposed to generate everything. In that sense, all Josh is supposed to add is the parameters for content generation.

Currently the AI can mine, trade, buy equipment, hire other NPCs, declare war all on its own. If I'm not mistaken, it can also offer the player missions. It's more competent than Rebirth's AI even now because it consists of distinct higher and lower level entities.

What Josh now needs to add is actually polish in the form of the object generators(ships, stations etc.). And he also needs to properly flesh out the item and research system in the game.

This was never going to be a story-driven game in the first place so I have no idea what type of content people were expecting. It's a game about getting rich and building a space empire in any manner you choose. That's where the content lies. If he promised something more, I missed it, and I've been following this pretty closely.

verybad1 wrote on Dec 4, 2014, 13:11:Sounds like one of those games that's directly transferred form the board game to the computer and doesn't take either of those platforms strengths and weaknesses into account.

Board games are fun because they're truly social (as in you have several people in the same room so dice roll based success/failure can be fun and even amusing. Computer games have the ability to take a lot more into account without slowing down the process, so can be more realistic.

Direct transfers never seem to work well IMO.

You are talking about the FIRST game. Ascension is the second game and exists to correct the problems caused by its predecessor. That's why it came out so relatively quickly after the first game. The first game is there for the direct boardgame translation and the second game is much more akin to an XCOM kind of experience (albeit with space marines and terrible monsters instead).

I can tell you that they play very differently. I had very little enthusiasm for the first game, but I definitely like and appreciate Ascension.